Vancouver city hall says it’s doing all it can to stop the rising number of SRO landlords using fixed term leases to raise rents well beyond what low-income residents can afford to pay.

Some SRO residents say they can only eat if they can find free food as rents rise above welfare amounts, and from a local MLA who says the city needs to step in and prevent landlords of low-income buildings from using fixed term leases.

But the city’s director of housing policy and projects Abi Bond the city’s limited by what it can do.

“We’re not able to… I mean, obviously the use of certain tenancy agreements is under the Residential Tenancy Act, and that’s under provincial legislation, so we’re not able to kind of step into that on behalf of other landlords or tenants.”

MLA for Vancouver West-End, Spencer Chandra Herbert, told CKNW the number of fixed-term lease evictions in his riding are becoming too high to count.